I'm up to something

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The cats in my houses generally do those things that one would expect of such creatures. They are cute on occasion, neurotic most of the time, and manage somehow to be both needy and aloof at any given moment. Except in the mornings, when they are only needy.

Generally, Nerd 2 is up first and can take care of the feeding duties before the cats take to divebombing my face in an attempt to wake me up. The trouble, however, occurs when Nerd 2 gets to sleep in for some cruel reason, or is gone for a long period of time, and the pestering falls to me. I’m pretty stubborn about my last hour or so of sleep, and the cats know that they need to step up their game beyond a few gentle meows or paw taps to the shoulder. Mornings when I’m in charge generally consist of, at minimum, a lot of swearing, an item or several knocked off the dresser, and the occasional scratch-induced battle scar.

Things came to a head mid-last week in an incident that I won’t bore you with the details of, that ended in me returning my nightstand to an upright position whilst praying that my glasses made a safe landing and muttering about aggressions that will not stand…man.

So, Nerd 2 comes back, and I tell him the story, and he tells his aunt, who utters one of the wisest sayings that I’ve heard in my life: “Oh, you never feed cats in the morning!”

Wait…what?

I was skeptical of course, the cats have done a pretty good job of training us to fill their dishes every morning, and I couldn’t see that stopping just because they were filled a mere 8 hours before. But ‘lo and behold, the last 5 mornings have dawned to an uneasy truce. No howling, no biting, no cat tongue on my fricking forehead. This, my friends, is change that I can believe in.